That Fit Body: A journey and not a destination!

“Lights, Roll Camera…. ACTION!”
And here we roll on with the very first fitness blog post of my life.
Feels like that inauguration moment with all its chills and thrills. Actually, it feels more like this:

I finally did it!

Well, having set the stage of freshness here, here’s something I really wanted to cover upon when it came to improving my own self as well as the people I love to help improving on a consistent basis. And I would like to start with a random female friend of mine to materialize how sinister the plot usually gets. Let’s just call her Monica.

Now Monica here has a peculiar pursuit. She has her wedding day planned in about two months from now and she feels she isn’t in the best shape of her life. Actually she wants to reach juuuust there: The RIGHT body when she wears the wedding dress and stands on stage before the camera with the love of her life. Brilliant target I must say. And after a few idea-exchanges, discussions, paper drawings, and the occasional me throwing around some sciency jargon, we actually end up with an exercise program, combined with basic nutrition best practices for the comign months to get Monica to her best fit and svelte form ever.
Fast forward two weeks and she actually DID IT. On the reception day, we see her as the most transformed bride ever and everyone is applauding her intense effort and diligence put in during the two months. Inluding me. We hi-Five each other, have some drinks and food and call it a day.

And here’s where the story actually begins:

Recently, about 8 months from that day, we bump into each other shopping in a mall and I’m somewhat taken aback by looking at her. Monica has not a single ounce of the good changes in her now and has lost the lean and fit appearance she once so champion-ishly fought and won. The so-out-of-place accumulated pounds of fat aside, I also see that wired strong look lost from both her body and face now. But more horrifying from this observation was the fact that Monica seemed pretty casual and satisfied about her having lost all the hard earned fitness. In her words: “Hey dude, I guess you need to take a chill pill on this exercise stuff for now. Listen, it is all for attraction on THAT SPECIAL DAY. When the day’s over, show’s over, and it’s over. We all have those special moments we need to look good at. Well, for me, it was that reception day. And NOW, I want to live my life. Pamper myself. You should learn to pamper yourself too. So get out of your gym-rat shoes and get a life dude!!!!.”



Those words are to this day resounding in my head. The fact is these aren’t Monica’s words exclusively. She is not alone when it comes to the countless men and women I keep meeting on a regular basis who’s only intention behind joining a gym or following a diet is to just ‘reach there’ and quit.

“I want to lose this rubber like tummy in two weeks.”
“I want slimmer weeks and all I have is one month man.
“I want to get bigger arms in fifteen days before I go meet that pretty selfie girl from Facebook who hasn’t ever seen me in reality.”
Shit. What do I do… What do I do?
I feel it’s time we start looking at our pursuit to stay fit and in shape as a lifetime endeavor, a journey, rather than a few days’ ordeal. It moves me to see people spending a big part of their paychecks on an yearly membership at gyms only to turn up the first few weeks and never again. Of course, we as fitness professionals should devise better strategies to motivate clients to keep showing up and doing some solid work at our facilities but as a lifetime fitness enthusiast myself, I feel the onus for not falling out of a fit condition lies entirely upon me, more than anyone else.
Additionally, let’s look around at all the people we may consider as our mascots or role models in fitness who got us all started on the exercise and clean eating road. Do you really think they got where they are only by following that six week cure to skinny arms or the eight week belly blaster exercise program or turning up at the gym for 21 days and becoming extinct in their usual daily life. Results like these that we all crave for come from a boring level of determination for years and years. More like personal hygiene. Can we expect to have a sparkling white set of teeth with brushing our teeth only about every other week or so? Well it’s exactly the same with keeping fat off that belly or getting huge muscled legs. They all demand a prolonged effort of determination, long enough before these activities become second nature to us and form a part of our lifestyle. It might not be a bad idea to be recognized by these life-long fit acts and habits when people meet us.

Andreia Brazier never became the goddess she is by doing a mere fifteen day gym membership!

At the dawn of this blog-adventure of mine, the point I would love to really drive home today would be how we should realign our thoughts when we look at getting fit. Let’s not only do it to fulfill a promise we gave to our loved ones to get in shape as a new year resolution. Let us instead learn to ‘grow-older-getting-fitter’. Now, please do not get me wrong here. I am all for short term fitness goals if they are a part of the grand plan altogether. But getting hooked up to a small success and forgetting about the bigger picture, a bigger lifetime goal can be a shortcut to sabotaging all the hard work we have ever done during that short period of time.  Good health is a great companion on a lifetime journey and we may not want to let go of it after a short while. After all, it’s those little efforts we do everyday, that deliver the dreams-come-true results we all want, when combined over a very long period of time.
Finally, I do hope Monica is able to pull herself out of her limited mental inertia and get back on her highway to health and hotness!
What are your thoughts? Keep sharing your ideas on the improvement and overall content as well as what you would like to hear from me here. Until then…